


Something Only I Would Know

by mnwood



Series: Ficlets and Coda [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ableist Language, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Chuck Shurley is God, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, POV Dean Winchester, Paralysis, Post-Canon, References to Croatoan/Endverse (Supernatural), Season/Series 15, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travelling Dean Winchester, Wheelchairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnwood/pseuds/mnwood
Summary: Dean experiences a spinal cord injury after being stabbed in the back by a nail during a hunt. Two years later, alone in the bunker manning the phones, Dean is confronted with his past self and attempts to change just one thing.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Ficlets and Coda [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010346
Comments: 18
Kudos: 414





	Something Only I Would Know

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for Dean being ableist
> 
> Thanks to my good buddy [Jess](https://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/) for letting me use her headcanon that Dean could've been paralyzed by the rusty nail in 15x20.

Just as Dean was hoisting his left leg onto his bed, one of the phones rang in the library. He sighed and moved his leg rest back into place, then wheeled out to the hallway, hoping he could get to the phone in time. Sam was on a hunt with Eileen out in Iowa, and Jody and Claire were taking out some werewolves up in Nowhere, Michigan, but other than that, nobody else should be calling. 

He didn’t make it in time. As he sifted through the phones to figure out where the missed call came from, something crashed in the kitchen.

“Who’s there?” he yelled forcefully, grabbing a shotgun from a table before pushing himself to the kitchen.

“Son of a bitch,” a familiar voice said just as Dean turned the corner.

He looked right at himself, all six-foot-one of himself standing in the middle of the kitchen, his legs working just fine.

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me,” other Dean said, progressively raising his voice until the end of the sentence was a shout. He glared up at the ceiling. “I’m gonna kill you, Chuck!”

“Which universe are you from?” Dean asked calmly.

Other Dean glared down at him, jaw clenched. “The _real_ one. And you’re obviously from one where I’m bad enough at my job to land myself in a goddamn wheelchair. That’s real great.”

“No,” Dean said, sizing his other self up. “You’re too much like me.” A memory came back to him, something he said to himself in a situation similar to this one, years ago. “Tell me something only I would know.”

“Oh come on, don’t quote me to me.” Other Dean took a beer out of the fridge and tossed the cap in the direction of the trash can. “Although if you’re from a different universe, I guess you wouldn’t have a memory of that. I must just say the same shit in every version of myself.”

“I do have a memory of it.” 

They glared at each other.

Dean said, “Camp Chitaqua.”

Other Dean blinked. “Yeah, OK.” He took a long pull from his beer, staring pointedly at the wheelchair as he did. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2022.”

Other Dean dropped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Ah, fuck. How’d we end up crippled?”

“No. Tell me something only I would know.”

Other Dean stared at him, annoyed. He lost the staring contest after half a minute, shaking his head and scoffing and then taking another long drink of beer. He then looked down at the table and said loudly, “Cas.”

“Excuse me?”

Other Dean raised his eyes. “He told me he loved—he said he loved me. And that he realized he couldn’t have what he wanted. And then the Empty took him.”

Dean ran his tongue along his top teeth. “OK, you are me.” He pushed his wheelchair forward and moved the shotgun from his lap to the table. “And you must be from 2020.”

“Oh goddamn it, I’m gonna lose my legs that soon?” Other Dean stood and said, “Christ, I need a stronger drink.”

“We don’t have anything stronger.”

“What?”

“I don’t drink anymore. The beer is for everybody else that comes through here.”

Other Dean sat back down. “Is Sam—”

“On a hunt with Eileen. Everybody’s fine. Well, except.” Dean gestured to the room and shook his head. 

“Except your legs?”

He leveled himself with an impatient glare. “No. It’s a C7 spinal cord injury, and it’s really not that big of a fucking deal. I was talking about Cas.”

Other Dean looked at his beer bottle, picking at the label with his thumbs. “Chuck is trying to show us that we have no free will. He threw me here to prove that I can’t change anything about our lives.”

“Oh, like _The Time Traveler’s Wife?”_

Other Dean made a face at him, but then his eyebrows raised in realization. “Right, we read that a couple years ago. Man, I forgot about that. Yeah. Like, why would I try to bring Cas back if I’m sitting here with you now, and you’re telling me Cas never came back? So what’s the point of me trying to bring him back if I already know he’s not here in 2022?”

Dean’s eyebrows knit together as he thought for a minute. Eventually he said, “I know you’re me because I never told anybody that Cas is in love with me.”

“Whoa, whoa, he didn’t say—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Dean swallowed. “Let me tell you something, alright? You’re gonna spend a couple months having no fucking idea what to do with yourself, no clue how to cope, so you and Sam are gonna try to do some run-of-the-mill hunts, and guess what? On the very first one you’re gonna break your fucking back after being impaled on some shitty nail in the wall. You’re gonna spend six months laid up in bed feeling sorry for yourself, drinking yourself stupid, wanting to die, praying yourself hoarse to Cas, and Cas is not gonna fucking show up!” 

He took a ragged breath and continued, “And Jack doesn’t either. And then Sam’s gonna tell you that he needs you to get your shit together, and it’s not because he needs your help saving the world or even just needs your help on a hunt, it’s because he wants to get married, wants to marry Eileen, so you’re gonna put your sorry life back together enough to be the best man at your brother’s wedding, and that’s when you’re gonna realize that there’s more to your shit life than the selfish things that you want—things like, I don’t know, being able to walk? And having Cas.” He closed his eyes. “You’re gonna realize that Cas meant that he was _in_ love with you, that he wanted to _be_ with you, and you’re gonna have to deal with the enormity of that. That this—that a being so ancient and so huge and literally so incomprehensible to you that your ears bled the first time you heard him speak—that he could learn _love?_ From your sorry ass? Look at me, Dean. Listen to what I’m saying to you.” 

He waited until other Dean looked him in the eye. “Eventually you’re gonna accept the fact that Cas lived thousands of years without doing anything other than following the will of heaven, never changing course, only to meet you and learn love so completely that the only thing he wants is to be with _you._ The first selfish, human desire of his life. You. And you didn’t even get the time to process it, to tell him that you love him, too, before he was gone. So the best you can do is try to actually _live_ your fucking life, because he died to save you.”

The silence between them was heavy. Eventually other Dean said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I never told anybody. Listen to me, Chuck said Cas didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you—us. He changed things when he told you. So you can change things, too. Go back to your time and fucking tell somebody. Is Jack still around? For fuck’s sake, tell Jack.”

“I can’t—everything you just told me, I can’t—I haven’t…”

“Dean, listen. I know. I know how you feel. I know you, and I know you don’t trust yourself, but look at me. I’m different than you, alright? You can trust me. I just threw two years of emotional processing at you, of course you can’t deal with that. But you can do just _one_ thing. Just one. Tell Jack.”

Other Dean studied his face. “You really are different.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean shrugged and looked at his legs. “Turns out being loved by a cosmic being changes you.”

“And being paralyzed.”

“No, trust me, that’s easier to deal with.”

Other Dean huffed a small laugh and nodded. “Uh, what are you gonna do? What happens now?”

“Don’t worry about me, you just—”

A loud crack cut Dean off, then his other self disappeared out of existence. He looked around the kitchen warily, as if something dramatic was about to happen. Instead, a phone once again began ringing in the library. 

As Dean wheeled through the hallway, he felt a splitting headache and had to stop and close his eyes. Images flashed through his brain, mostly of him and Cas, and then they abruptly stopped and he felt fine. The phone was still ringing.

He only made it a few more feet before the headache returned, worse than before. Images, so fast and loud in his head that it felt like his brain would explode. When they stopped, he blinked his eyes open and had a realization. 

“It’s not _The Time Traveler’s Wife._ It’s—” he did a 180 in his wheelchair and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Cas standing at the end of the hall. “— _Looper.”_

“Ah, we’ve finally caught up, then?” Cas said shyly as he walked toward Dean. He squatted in front of him, not in a patronizing way, but as a gesture of trust, submission. “You said it would be soon. You made me watch _Looper_ so I would understand _._ Does your head feel alright?”

Dean put his hand to Cas’ face, delicately, like he might disappear if he touched him too much. “Cas.”

Cas turned his head and kissed Dean’s palm, then held his hand against his face and smiled at him. “I’m right here.”

The memories kept coming back to Dean, the changed timeline, his past self defeating Chuck and immediately telling Jack that he had to bring Cas back because he never got the chance to tell him he loved him, too. Then—still getting hurt on a hunt, still needing time to process and adjust, to give up drinking, learn how to accept Cas’ love and to love Cas properly in return—but easier this time, because Cas was there. Cas gave him space and time, all while loving him and taking care of him.

Dean took a deep breath. “C’mere, Cas.”

He didn’t wait. He pulled Cas up into his arms and buried his face in his neck and said, “I love you, you can have me. You can have me forever.”

Cas laughed gently. “I know, Dean. I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Time Traveler's Wife (book) - Henry has no agency and no free will because he time travels randomly to different parts of his life and therefore knows everything that happens before it happens, and can't change any of it.  
> Looper (movie) - When people time travel to the past and try to change their lives, their memories change in the present as the timeline of their lives change. 
> 
> This idea rattled around in my brain for a while, not really your typical fix-it but I just couldn't let it go!! I'm [deancasheadcanons](https://deancasheadcanons.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


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